PORTLAND, Ore.--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--Free
& Fair, a startup developingtransparent, cyber secure
and verifiable elections systems, today announced it has been selected
by the State of Colorado to develop a high-assurance, open source
software system to help state and local officials implement
risk-limiting post-election audits.

“Using
paper ballots, ensuring effective chain of custody of those paper
ballots, and confirming the correctness of election outcomes with
statistical post-election audits are among the very best tools we have
for securing our elections.”

A risk-limiting audit (RLA) is an evidence-based method that checks the
integrity of election outcomes by comparing a random sampling of paper
ballots to their corresponding digital versions. Colorado is the first
U.S. state to require RLAs on a regular basis, starting with the
November 2017 off-year election.

RLAs are better and more efficient than the random post-election audits
they will replace in Colorado, because they generally require a smaller
number of ballots to be audited but still provide a much higher
statistical probability that the outcome is correct. At the same time,
election experts also consider RLAs an essential component of a secure
election process that can protect against both inadvertent tabulation
errors and malicious cyberattacks.

Supporting Quotes:Colorado
Secretary of State Wayne Williams“Over the past decade, in
academic journals and elsewhere, a large number of accomplished
political scientists, statisticians and election integrity activists
have advocated the theory and benefits of risk-limiting tabulation
audits. In simple terms, and with a high level of statistical
probability that has never existed before, RLAs will ‘limit the risk’
that Colorado or any of its counties will certify official election
results if the outcome is not correct.”

Neal McBurnett, nationally recognized expert on implementation of
election audits and a member of the Free & Fair implementation team“Colorado
has been a pioneer in moving election audits forward since 2004, and
risk-limiting audits represent the most innovative work on the planet on
efficient tabulation audits.”

Dr. Joseph Kiniry, Free & Fair CEO and internationally recognized
security expert“Colorado’s leadership in elections auditing
should be a beacon for the rest of America, and we look forward to
seeing risk-limiting audits deployed in the other 49 states. And because
the new RLA software system will be open source, other jurisdictions
around the country will be able to use it at low cost to audit their own
election results.”

Ron Rivest, world-renowned cryptographer and Turing Prize winner"Using
paper ballots, ensuring effective chain of custody of those paper
ballots, and confirming the correctness of election outcomes with
statistical post-election audits are among the very best tools we have
for securing our elections."

About Free & Fair

Free & Fair’s mission is to bring open source, high-assurance elections
to the world. Based in Portland, Oregon, Free
& Fair provides elections services and systems meeting higher
reliability and security standards than the US federal government
demands for national security.